Week 89

Hello to all of my family and friends! It's been another great week here in Villa-Celina! 

Lot's of things were going on this week so I'll see what experiences I can share with you all today!

Well! The most important first!! BAPTISM!! WHOO! On Saturday 2 little girls, Camila and her sister Wendy, were baptized Whoo!! It was a very nice baptismal service, a little put together last minute, but it all worked out, the important part is that they got baptized. We've been so packed with all of the things these last 2 weeks because the ETM's have been with us, but it went well! WHOO!! 

 

One of the things that was most surprising. Last week we found Gabriela and her family, like I said, and she was really great! We gave her a Book of Mormon and we told her to read it! So when we went back the other day, sadly she had not read. But had found some "interesting" things on the internet about the Mormons. She had several questions about our beliefs and practices because she found it very very weird and not good. So we explained a few things to her and we have invited her to read the Book of Mormon and to ask God if it is true several times. We haven't been able to teach her this week, so we're still waiting to see what will happen. But, she is still very interested. Good things! 

We've been finding lot's of people this last week, as we've had the ETM's with us. It was a good experience, but it's nice too to be comfortable once again living only the 4 elders in the same pench. Also it will be nice to meet the people that Elder Garcia has found. 

One of my favourite parts of the week, on Thursday we had a special training with the Asistents for all of the stake of missionaries. We got together here in our church, and we talked about how we need to follow the Spirit, we need to find by the Spirit. If we don't follow the impressions of the Spirit we won't find the people that the Lord want's us to find. Then For 2 hours we all came over here to our area and we worked and contacted a ton of people and we tried our best to follow the impressions that we felt from the Spirit. We worked on not putting excuses and not ignoring it, and it was a very pleasant experience, I've noticed as I follow the impressions that the Spirit gives to me, I can feel the next impression much easier, but if I ignore one, the next one is harder to feel. I know that the gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift from God and as we follow what he tells us we find more happiness and joy in our lives.

As well! HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! WHOO!! For our fourth of July celebration we bought a pizza and we ate it! MMM.... Not quite as tasty as the classic hamburgers grilled by my dad that we would eat, but it was still good! 

Anyway's! That was pretty much our week! I love you all and hope that all is well where ever you all. There's been lot's of rain this week so we're enjoying that you know it!

-Elder Slack

Week 52:

Hello World!!

Hey! It's Elder Slack once again, here to tell you what's going on in the Argentina world!! I hope you are all ready because this week has been super duper full of everything you can think of!!

First things first, we started Monday off with some good old bike problems, my companion paid for a few repairs and when I showed the bike man my bike for normal maintenance and he told me that it's better to throw my bike in the trash and buy a new one than to repair the things that are out of line. Whoo! Haha! So we talked to the pensioneros real quick and they said that they'd hook me up with a new bike some time soon, don't know when, but sometime!

And well, the rest of the week was pretty much normal running around, teaching repentance to the people of Alejandro-Korn, changing lives, seeing angels, you know, all that good stuff. I'll tell you real quick about the people that we taught this week.

Luciano, the child who's family is less active, he's super awesome, we keep teaching him and we are working with him so he can be baptized, but his family just doesn't come to the church, so we'll be seeing where that goes.  

Olindo, is the brother of one of the recent converts, super prepared and wants to be baptized, but..... He disappeared off the face of the earth this week! NO!! Ahh! We're not quite sure what happened, but we're hoping that his family can find him in his house this week, we're not sure if he got sick or something like that, but he just didn't show up at his family's house, where he normally goes 4 or 5 times a week. Weird right?

And Silvia and Brian! We had 2 lessons with them this week, both of them at the end of the day, they are super awesome, Brian is the son of Silvia, he is 15 years old, and just needs some friends, which he can surely find the the Church! And Silvia is just looking for some peace and happiness in her family, which also she can find in the Gospel! Whoo! We're hoping they can be baptized during November if they keep progressing.

Sharon, the all star child, she is 11, she's going to be baptized with her brothers the 26th of November with her brother and sister that are going to turn 8, She's praying really really well and they are reading the book of mormon for kids!

Matias and Camila, they are going to get married in January! It's a little ways away, but we're hoping that Camila can feel comfortable and ready to be baptized before then. Matias was less active, Camila is his future wife. They're awesome!! This week I ate the Kidney of a Cow for the first time with them! It wasn't that bad actually!

And well we're working with a few more people too. The biggest miracle of the week, Silvia is her name, why a miracle?? Well She's married!! Whoo!! The majority of the people who live here aren't married,if you didn't know, they are just boyfriend girlfriend and then decide to live together. But she is married whoo!! She was a referral from a member here, the member introduced her to us and we were able to teach her Saturday and we invited to her come to church the next day and she came!!! The member passed by her house in the morning and they came walking together!! Whoo!! It was awesome, she really liked the church and we're hoping to teach her husband and the rest of her family this week too! 

And well then, that's a lot about the investigators, but I guess I am here for them. Not much else happened this week. Oh yeah, on Thursday in a family home evening of the ward someone to remain unnamed who may or may not be one of the other missionaries in the ward here, "accidentally" knocked my camera on the floor and now it doesn't really work... sad face. But that's alright, I'll look around to see if I can find a used camera or a missionary that wants to give me theirs. I've got some other pictures from the rest of the week before that though. It's been a great week! Elder González and I, we're getting ourselves all ready for another great transfer here in the zone, super stoked, it's going to be great. Elder Cordeiro my old companion, and Elder Hall my companion from the MTC are both District Leaders here in the zone! Whoo! Anyways, until next week I hope I can write you guys! Much love, Chau!!

-Elder Slack

P.S. Some photos from the ward activity of halloween (my companion as "santa" and I as I don't know) And some other photos from the week.

Week 25: All for one and All for some

Hey!! This Wednesday I've been out for 6 months!! WOW! I can hardly believe it! The time is flying sooooo fast!! It's been so great here on the mission I love every moment!

This past week Elder Ribeiro and I, we've been back up and running to full speed! My toe is all good now, they took out the stitches and everything. Now I just have to make sure that I cut my toe nails really well for the rest of my mission so that I don't have to lose any more time resting! 

This past week has been a week full of everything and nothing at the same time. Every single day Elder Ribeiro and I, we head out of our pension all determined to work and find the people, teach them and change the life of every single person we talk with! So we did the same this week! We left, we talked with a ton of people, but almost everyday we had some sort of activity,  whether it was a district meeting, capilla abierta, we had to go to the hospital, we had our weekly planning, our ward mission correlacion, lots of things going on this week. With the time that we had we were out on the streets looking to bring people to God, teach repentance, baptize converts, all the good stuff. We worked sooo much this week, we were working working working, we passed by the house of all of our investigators almost everyday, we taught as many lessons as we could find, and then came yesterday. The last day of the week, we sit down to plan for today, we look at the week and how everything went, we count up the numbers from all of our key indicators/goals and!!!..... Wow, for all the work we have been doing the week looked almost like we sat around in our pench all day and only went working one day during the week. Hahaha! But I guess that's how it goes sometimes. We're still really determined and really working hard, we've got our goals all fixed and ready and we're trying to figure out some sort of new game plan, we're seeking out and getting rid of any disobedience, we're all ready to start off another week! 

It's been really good here in González Catán, the weather has been cooling down a lot, and now we are preparing for the winters, the food is still great the members are still great! I love being a missionary!!

This week as well!!!! Camila was baptized!! YAY!!!!! It was so great! She's been able to figure a few things out recently and has been able to come to church all on her own now, and she had her baptism yesterday!! My companion baptized her and it was really such a great moment to see her so happy and shining all day! It was a great feeling, and now she needs to come the next week on Sunday to be confirmed a member of La Iglesia de Jesuscristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Días!! Now we are going to try and work with her children as well, they are a little bit hard to work with, they have a lot of energy and are a little bit wild, but we're here to help them too! 

It's all great here in el Gran Catán! The time truly does fly and I'm trying to take advantage of the short time I have here to help the most people that I can! I hope you all know I love you! As well you should all watcht the church video about Easter! It's great!

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2016-02-1000-hallelujah-an-easter-message-about-jesus-christ?lang=eng

Chau!

-Elder Slack

P.S. A photo from the baptism.

Week 23: Teach repentance!

Hello! It's transfer day today! And Elder Ribeiro and I will be staying together strong for another 6 weeks here in González Catán! It's such a great opportunity to be out here and serve 100% of the time! 

We've been working hard this week, we're trying with all of our efforts to be able to show the people the pathway to Christ and help them to begin their journey along that path. We've been having a few difficulties with our investigators, but we're learning along with them and we keep praying that they will have the faith to act and progress.

Remember Camila? We've been working with her a lot, she is really a great person and everything, but her situation is a little difficult. She is a little special, and we have to be really focused on our teaching of how to help her progress. Now we can really see that she has the desire to progress, but still has a few trials in her life to be able to progress along the path. It's really hard to see when someone has the desires to follow  Christ but some of their trials make it extremely difficult to do so, but I believe that it makes the prize even more worth it, when we have to work hard and push to be able to receive the blessings of God, we appreciate them even more. 

These past weeks we have been working a lot with a young man, named Alfredo, he's a great guy, he understands a little bit, but we're trying to work with him so that he can have the desires to come to church every week, it's really hard when he struggles so much with his family, but we are really trying to help all of those who will listen and show him that the blessings of God are so much more rewarding than the things of the world. 

As well, yesterday we went to church in the morning and we were there and then this young man showed up, we started talking with him. He tells us he's not a member of any church, that he has never been to an LDS church before, but that he found the church on the Internet and found it interesting and so he just came on his own! It was so cool to see how sometimes God just brings his children back to where they can feel his love, it really taught me how much God has a plan for everyone, and that really as missionaries we just have to do our part in faith and everything follows God's plans and timing. 

As well this week, we went out to do visits with the first counselor of our ward bishopric, we went with him to visit a family who are less active and part of the family aren't members, it was so great to be able to see as he testified to them how much repentance can help them in their lives. Truly when we have the knowledge of the gospel and the commandments and as we try our best to follow Christ, we will be protected and receive help in our trials. But as well the opposite, when we have that knowledge and we choose not to follow Christ we do not have the same promise, we cannot be protected and the only way that we can once again feel the happiness of the gospel is through repentance and Jesus Christ. Truly he taught me that repentance is so necessary if we want to receive the blessings God has in store for us. 

And yeah, it's been a great week! I hope you are all well! I appreciate all of your emails and it is so good to be here!

Love you all! Chau

-Elder Slack

(Picture courtesy of 

Maria De Los Angeles Fernandez Bevans)

Week 20: The power of prayer!

HellllllooooooO!

Sorry to all of you who were desperately waiting last week for my email, we didn't have much time we had to go to an appointment and we did a lot of things that day, but, in  case you were wondering, I am still living!

This last week has been incredible! I'm learning so much here with Elder Ribeiro (my Companion) we don't always agree 100% on everything, but we work together really well and we are working towards the same purpose! He has been teaching me so many different things about the mission, even though I am training him, I have learned way more from him than I think I have taught him. It is such a blessing to be able to work with such a dedicated servant and amazing missionary!

This past week, we've been working with Camila a little bit, she's been progressing to the point where she reads in the Book of Mormon, but still she hasn't been to church in the last 5 weeks, so we're really hoping that we can help her out a lot so she come this next week. 

We had our zone conference during this past week, we reviewed all of the things that we learned in the world missionary training broadcast and as well we were able to learn a lot about teaching repentance and baptizing converts. There were a lot of things that I could see that I needed to work on still, and as well as I've tried to apply the things I've learned during this past week I've been able to see my progress and the changes and how much the spirit is helping me to learn and grow.

Elder Ribeiro and I, we've been working really hard in our area, really searching and looking for the people who are prepared to hear the gospel. during this past week at the end of one of the days where almost all of our appointments fell through and we were a little bit discouraged. We sat down to plan, and we began to think about something new that we could to do to be able to find more people, and to be able to teach and find more with the spirit. Elder Ribeiro had the great idea that every time that we have a lesson, or every time we go to search for someone, we can say a prayer before we begin and ask specifically for help so that we can find the person we are looking for, and that they can be ready to hear the message that we have prepared for them. We tried it out the next day, and as we searched and prayer, we were able to find 5 new investigators which is more than we had found during the other week before. It was a really great experience.

I learned that we need to plan well, pray and ask specifically, then go and have faith that we will find the people that need us. It has been a great experience being able to work here with Elder Ribeiro and being able to try new ideas and learn lots of different things. It's great being able to learn with 2 fairly new missionaries, we have so much to learn from one another.

The week was really great, I gotta go now, but until next week, If God wants (as a lot of people say here).

Chau! -Elder Slack

(Photos from an awesome sister in the ward Elder Slack is serving in. His camera got lost stolen back in December. I don't know who all the Elders are in the pictures, but it's sure good to see my son!!!)

Week 15: Every member a missionary!

Hello!! Elder Slack here again, I hope you all missed me, but didn't miss me this week! Just know that I am living here happily in Argentina! I hope the rest of you in the states don't freeze while I'm trying not to get sunburned.

This week was great, full of new adventures, I have found this week that my camera appears to be lost, I haven't seen it since new years, so sorry, but I don't have any new pictures for this week. Luckily I have the majority of the photos I took saved on my memory cards. 

This week at last is back to normal work. No holidays, no nothing. It was great to be able to have a good solid week of work again. We've been doing a lot. Elder Tolentino and I have been trying to think of new ways in which we can strengthen this ward. As I said before there are a ton of less active members. Us as missionaries we don't have permission to visit less active members just to reactivate them. They have to have someone in their house who isn't a member to be able to baptize. So we've been working with the active members of the ward a lot to be able to motivate them to go out and visit the less actives. In our ward we now have 10 ward missionaries!! They are members of the ward who are called to be missionaries for the ward for 2 years and essentially they are a micro missionary. They are more to focus on the members and help them, and as well to help us out as missionaries a little with our investigators. 

Along with the ward missionaries we are also trying to put together some activities during the week, where the members can come and participate so that they can have a little reminder in the middle of the week to come and have a little spiritual thought to be able to have some fun. As well so we can bring investigators so that they can see that we are normal people as well, not just two crazy boys who walk a lot and want to show up at their houses and talk about Christ. 

Our investigator Camila is progressing a ton!! This week she woke up herself and her kids so that they could all walk to the church with us because she doesn't have money to pay for a bus! And she was all ready to go and we went out and then we had another one of our investigators with her kids show up at church! It was the best!!!

As well our ward mission leader, Nico, he gave the best talk on Sunday, he talked about the importance of missionary work, and how missionary work isn't just for the 4 missionaries in the ward, but missionary work is for every single individual member, and that we should all look for opportunities to serve our brothers and sisters to bring them closer to Christ. It was the best!! All of the members were super willing to talk to us after church and everything, and it is awesome.

As well, we were out working yesterday, we had our plans all ready, a few appointments set with some investigators, and they fell through, so we decided to try and find a few old investigators, and none of them were home. So what do we do now?? We tried searching for about an hour or so, with once again no luck. At this point we were a little discouraged and not quite sure if we were doing things right. Then we had this brilliant thought! The members, we need to work with members. We had written down a few new families with whom we could work the following week in our weekly planning and we decided to go talk to them. We were able to find them all in their houses and share a little scripture, and then several of them committed to come and accompany us for different days of the week to help us with some of our investigators. And now we've decided to try and work with different members every week so that we can show the members all the work they can do and how they can help us and help the less actives! It was a great day!

That's all for now! Hopefully I can find my camera! Keep smiling all the time!

Has anyone told you what day it is today?? Because it is a GREAT day to be a missionary!!

Chau!

-Elder Slack

Week 14: The Sky is Falling and Blessings from the Heavens

Hey! Feliz Año nuevo de Argentina!!

I hope that you all had a great time over this past week, the life as a missionary is definitely not the best on the holidays, but I loved it all the same. And now that we have full weeks we can put in more work!

On our P-day last week, after we went and emailed we went out on an adventure, the great adventure of Walmart in Argentina! It was long and hard, we searched for days and nights, through wind and snow and sleet, in jungles and mountains, and crossed a great river, but eventually we found it!! Yes I know, we found a Walmart!! Actually it was probably more like 15 minutes on a bus and 20 minutes of walking, but we actually crossed a river, a little one, on a bridge, and there was a lot of trash. But hey, It's all part of the adventure. Now you may be wondering, why would we want to go to Wal-mart while we are here in Argentina? Well I had one thing in mind! PEANUT BUTTER! And I am very pleased to say, that our mission was successful, I used my remaining funds of the month to purchase 2 very tiny, expensive, and amazingly delicious jars of peanut butter. 

The adventures of the week didn't stop there though! We had New Years this week, I hope all of you did too. If you are not yet in 2016 then you need to change something. But anyways. We spent New Years with a bunch of other Elders from our zone, we had about 10 of us. We all got together, everyone brought something and we were able to cook and eat our own asado. We didn't have a ton of meat, but it was good. We all got together in the pensions of 2 companionships of elders that are right next to each other and used the "Grill" of a member to cook it. It was great, and then at midnight once again, fireworks everywhere. New Years was even worse than Christmas, I thought Christmas was a lot. But here it started at midnight and went for about 45 minutes of non-stop explosions everywhere! It was insane!! Us Americans think we do a lot of fireworks on the fourth of July and everything, but they use probably 5 times as much here in Argentina for New Years. It was good. 

After New Years eve and New Years (when we couldn't go out to proselyte or work or anything) it was a lot better. We had a ton of appointments on Saturday and Sunday, because we couldn't put anyone on those 2 days. And It was great! We now have 3 different investigators with a baptismal date! It's so exciting!! And 2 of them went to church yesterday! We had to go out and search for Camila in the morning to bring her and her family to church,  

and we told her the night before "We're going to be here at 8:30, you need to be ready to go." We show up, still sleeping, but wait... Miracle, in 15 minutes they get all dressed and ready to go, and we leave for church the bus comes right as we are getting to the stop and we arrive at church at 9:03, not bad right!! It was the best to finally get her and see her family at church, her 2 little children found right away 2 little friends in the primary and they helped them to all their classes and everything, and after the classes when we saw Camila talking with some of the hermanas from the relief society, it was the best to see her so happy! And then in Sacrament meeting we had fast and testimony meeting, and we had the most peculiar meeting, all the people that decided to go up to bear their testimonies were couples. And they went up as husband and wife and shared their testimonies together and they talked a lot about the blessings of being with their families, and it was just the best!!

And then yesterday, we went out and had a ton of appointments all afternoon and it was good, we taught 3 lessons and have 2 new investigators. I can really tell a huge difference here when we are obeying the rules as missionaries. When we aren't being obedient to what God wants us to do he won't bless us and can't bless us. But when we are obedient and truly are doing all the things that we can to follow his commandments, he can pour out the blessings of heaven upon us! It is incredible! 

I'll wish you all a happy New Year, and I hope you all have some amazing new goals, and remember that a goal is only a wish until you write it down.

Your missionary here in Argentina

-Elder Slack

(note from Elder Slack's mom: Sorry I couldn't turn this...if you know how, email me and teach me how. Thanks!)

Here is what we ate for Christmas! Asado!!!

Week 13: ¡Feliz Navidad!

¡¡Hola a todos!!

This week was incredibly awesome, and different, and about everything that you could imagine! It's incredible! Argentina is the best!! We started out on Tuesday, we had a kind of big Christmas activity, our president came and stopped by our zone and gave all of us some alfajores and some American candy, it was delicious, and then we kind of chilled for a few hours, played some ping pong, cooked a full (a ton) of rice, made some of it into fried rice, and then we ate a ton, and it was great. I heard that the last years Christmas activity was a lot bigger and better, but it was good. I was happy eating a ton of fried rice.

As well we had a service activity the next day, we helped a member in our ward, to paint her door, and also to cut back some bushes and stuff that were attacking her car as she drove by. So we fought back the bushes and disentangled some of them from her fence, painted her door, got sun burned, saved the day and the princess. No big deal. It was fun, and she gave us almuerzo (Lunch) afterwards. 

The biggest part of the week, was Christmas! ¡Feliz Navidad! To all of you! It was probably one of the most different Christmas's that I'll ever have. The best part, I got to skype my family!!! Yah! They are all so awesome! If you haven't talked with them in a while, well they're all changing. It was slightly awkward as well though, because I was trying to talk English again. I can talk like one sentence at a time right now, and I can think and write just fine in English, but when I try and talk, I'm so used to talking to everyone in Español that it was a bit weird. And I tried to explain a few of the things that are going on here, it's kind of crazy. I can write this letter every week, as well I write to them separately. But they can't really understand what I'm feeling and all the things that I'm seeing. I just want to bring all of them here to see it all with me!

Other than that it was awesome to see my family. Here the Christmas traditions are a little bit different. The majority of the Christmas celebration is done at midnight. Everyone stays up until 12 the 24th and eat a ton of food and open all their presents at 12 and also they launch off a ton of fireworks. It's like world war III, it's pretty crazy. We went out up on the micro deck thing that these other elders have attached to their pension and we could see and here just fireworks everywhere. And they have massive firecrackers as well that just explode and are gigantic like bombs it's pretty crazy. All of the mission had permission to be out of the pension until 6 and then we had permission to be in the house of a member if they had a car to bring us home until 10:30, then we had to return to our or another elders in our districts pension. Where we could stay up, because it's Christmas and we don't work on the 24th or 25th. So we ate dinner with a family in our ward, all of the 6 elders in our district, together. And they fed us a ton. We ate asado, which is barbeque here but 10000 times better. And we were stuffed full. Literally, and they fed us some of the best ice cream that I have eaten here and all of the food was just amazing! 

The actual Christmas day was way different, I woke up and no one else was awake, so I studied in preach my gospel for 3ish hours, then everyone else was awake, and then Elder Tolentino and I went and visited some of the families in our ward and then skyped. Then we played some Magic ( Yes, Ethan, the card game) with our ward mission leader, in which I died a miserable death and lost -52 to 11. Then we went to the church where we played some fútbol (soccer) at which I am no where near as good as any of the young men who came to play with us.

But the week was great, we've got a great progressing investigator right now. Her name is Camila and we're teaching her and she is really interested, but now she just needs to have the faith to come to church with us, and she can receive so many blessings if she does! It's all good. I hope your New years goes well. As well I've learned a little bit of Guaraní here. It's the language of paraguay, and spanish, but.

Avani pa pejasafa año peajú? Which means with who are you going to pass your new years? (spelling is probably wrong, that's the Spanish sounding out though)

Tengan una buena semana!

Chau!